The Commute

I keep a journal of sorts now. My evening commute is an ideal time to report on the veritable freakshow smorgasbord that bookends my train commute. As such, I may take this opportunity to occasionally jot down my thoughts about the utter cunts and pleasant fuckers who occupy the seats around me. It is enough to make a book of it, if you like an angry book about twats making phone calls and broadcasting that they have a cold, which means by talking and so forth, the entire carriage gets an improved chance of sharing

Today I had the lesser-spotted car owners. Short one, it's late

They're a husband and wife team, he is a reactant - sees what she's doing, adjusts accordingly. She's a bag of fucking nerves. They were clearly on a train last when Beeching was still scribbling down notes and cackling at the community destruction he intends to wreak and she's fussing about, a fish out of water, presumably because this isn't a Vauxhall Cavalier, there are no overhead string nets to hold your reinforced corners suitcase and tea chest and where's the fucking porters? They sat down and had one of those conversations that you only ever hear on trains, in a Morrison's café or at an overcrowded doctor's waiting room in the 70s. Ripped Jeans Heidi (19) opposite them had made a phone call on speakerphone and later showed her ringtone would wake the fucking dead so we had two generational stereotypes in play.


If I could have had a bet I'd have won because when Heidi gets up to get off, I'd have had good money that they get up and move around the table because Hyacinth 'can't travel backwards'. Heidi hadn't even gone ten feet...

Friday had a cancellation either side of the one I wanted to be on home, so I HAD to make it.  With 25 minutes in hand for a fifteen minute drag to the station I was dead set.  Then the icy fingers of Crohn's snapped.

Essentially, I had to double march to the station as I had literally seconds in hand - I have it timed as a fine art.  Was on the concourse as it pulled in and it was over the fucking bridge as usual, so I dashed up the stairs and three quarters of the way up, I ran out of juice.  I persevered and at the top of the bridge, I saw people still on the platform lining up to get on.  Raised a dash down the 'wrong' stairwell, flitted past the guard into the nearest, bus-style area at the top of first class and literally made it by seconds (he had the whistle at the ready).

A woman with a small child offered me her flip-down seat and a bloke with a Sainsbury bag offered me a drink as I was breathing how I'd imagine I'd have breathed at fourteen on an episode of Jim'll Fix It when I'm in the khazi alone with my kecks around my ankles and I hear the door open and the words 'now then, now then...'.  Took me fully five to ten minutes to get back to normal, with repeated checks from those around me (people are generally nice and given I sweat like a Conservative at an expenses review, clearly concerned) but I was fine, I sat comfortably on the floor with a mild breath of air coming through the doors, cracked open a cold fizzy I had in my bag and settled to document the trip.

Yeah, my fucking pen ran out.

I'm laughing here Bert but I do feel sorry for you.

No, I was fine, Tone, but fuck me it needed some finessing - I had bags and everything so I was doing a really low rise version of Britain's Strongest Man and it was gratifying to make the train but everyone must have been terrified I was going to die on them, even though I knew I wasn't.

Talking of kecks round ankles and doors opening.

Brilliant

Last night was the stuff of legend.  Yesterday, early in the day, two things happened.  A TPE train between York and Darlington broke down, presumably under the mental strain of having to carry overbearing mass murdering Yorkies and County Durham's and Teesside's sex cases.  This coupled (none intended) with a rail that also buckled under the strain and broke up between Leeds and Dewsbury.  Travelling from Newcastle to Manchester therefore began to look like a scene from Von Ryan's Express.  Travelling from Scarborough was not dissimilar - war is hell.  However, as my two services run from Newcastle and Scarborough, my options had diminished to prayer and contingency planning, and we know that prayer usually ends in dead people.

As such the prognosis was good - a repair in place by 5.30 as proposed would put me beyond the disaster and in the aftermath, which mightn't be ideal for some but as someone who DGAF as long as it gets me there, fine.  Didn't check in the last hour - my options all involve Victoria (I am John Broon) so I'm going there anyway.

Got to the station and the departures board is replete with essays instead of one-liners.  Every train is delayed, cancelled, rerouted or missing staff, its biography laid bare.  There is no TPE fix, they're like the POWs at the end of the Great Escape to keep that theme going, so I am allowed to reroute through other operators.  As I have to go through Newton, I have one operator: Northern.  They run a rare stopper to Liverpool but I know that's not really an option down to rarity.  There is however a Chester train which gets me to NLW - half the problem solved.  It's late as it had no driver but nevertheless got me and the few sparse souls who were persevering with the hobbled network to attempt the Quantum Leap home on our way.  We got to Newton as darkness fell.

The next step was finding a Liverpool train.  The next due was the sadly demised TPE non-stopper to Liverpool, to be followed several minutes later by a Northern stopper, origin unknown but the final piece of our jigsaw.  Whereas the Chester Northern was actually pretty comfortable as a limited stopper, the Liverpool Northern was a bus-cum-crate on rails.  Not so much an issue but it felt like I'd just walked on to the set of The Equalizer.  Or Death Wish.  You can see the scene.  At the same time, it stopped at places with magical, almost supernatural names - Rainhill; Lea Green; Whiston; the Town of Earle; and most esoteric of all, St Helens Junction.  My choice was the unpronounceable Huyton (it's effectively Heighten) with its smuggled 'u' that is largely ignored.  Same wee fella appears in Euxton Balshaw Lane.

Nipped into the big Asda for a piss and some provisions - after dark when they're replenishing is like walking through a crime scene where by fuck, the victim fought back - and waited 20 minutes for my bus.  Got back at gone 11, felt like I'd been on countersurveillance techniques for the last few hours, and spent the latter part moving through the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is Huyton shops after closing - four betting shops, a couple of takeaways and an open 'til midnight bandits-only arcade sat among the discount shops, butchers, solicitors, statue of Harold Wilson and optimistic travel agents.  Have had worse nights

Two spies this week. The earlier was a woman who sat over the way from me. After sitting, she picked herself up and collected her bags, moved down the carriage one way, turned around, walked halfway up the carriage, stopped, came back and put her bags back in the same place and sat in the same seat. A clear countersurveillance technique, when we moved off a couple of minutes later, she then took the two seat row in front of her facing the other way. Clearly a spy, I took out a blowpipe and poison dart and fired. Unfortunately, the trolley service was passing at that point and the dart found another target, meaning there were no expensive lattes for the remainder of the journey

The other spy was not unlike the one above except that she sat and only got up when she had a total of five Chinese people on the eight seats (one vacant and me in the others). When she stood up, she dithered and barely moved. She did it again a yard away, moved/shuffled a couple of yards the other way and then put her bags back and sat next to the family of Chinese people (mum, dad and daughter) who she'd just left. When we moved off, she moved on to the next bank opposite a white bloke. So she's not just in countersurveillance, she's a racist spy. Mind you, the Chinese boyfriend and girlfriend who sat opposite me independently of the family over the way did garrote her in a brief commotion approaching Salford Central, so her concerns may have been genuine

Was at Manchester Victoria as walking wounded on Friday for 2.20. The next (half-hourly) train to Liverpool arrived at coughing distance to 4pm and was the first for over two hours. It was like an Antarctic remake of the Kampala airlift, all desperate souls in North Face and Fjallraven Kanken (wtf is that stuff?). Fortunately it was a 5-carriager so I got to slump comfortably

Haven't been on a train in this country for over 10 years....Used them all the time in Spain but on principle alone I refuse to pay the absurd fares....The most expensive in the fucking world.

And they're fucking shit, Tone. TPE aren't bad, tbh, and I've juggled my fares something spectacular to the point that it's pretty reasonable after you factor in bus costs. Trouble is, Yorkshire seems to have been a six-month natural fucking disaster and they're trying to run cigar tubes through it

Northern are fucking dire.

Today was legendary and not in a fucking good way.

I arrived at the station with fifteen minutes exactly until the 9.25. However, the boards indicated that the 8.25 was delayed and that only means one thing - something is fucked. Turns out it was signals out Huddersfield way. Now with fifteen minutes, I'm going to nip the khazi, get a Costa to dilate my pipes and get the train. Even if the delay is nil, I have the time. Halfway between the two doors into the toilet, the announcement goes - TPE are fucked for the foreseeable, get the 9.16 Northern to the airport through Oxford Road, you're freerolled. Fuck it, it's a stopper so there's another half hour and I've got to get to the far end of the concourse in two minutes when I sound like Tommy Vance and am coughing like a Millionaire scam. I get there and the train is fucking full, there are ten or so of us who can't get on because you can't fit a fucking quart in a pint pot.

I'm fulminating at this point and decide before finding out I'm being refused boarding to sit and wait because this is utterly shambolic and I can't be standing up for an hour, I'm fucked now. I'll do the toilet thing and get my coffee. So at 20 past, having wasted ten minutes doing a fucking loop, I have my coat off and arse out when over the tannoy comes two announcements - the 9.25 when it leaves, will go off 3 rather than 2, and the one that set me off, the 8.25 is cancelled. There is going to be a third announcement , I fucking know it and it followed literally seconds later.

The 8.25 cancellation meant the 9.25 could be moved back into a leaving slot and sure as eggs are fucking oval, the announcement two minutes before it was due to leave was that the delayed 9.25 is actually ready to leave, on time, and you should fucking get on it.

Let's recap. I got there at 10 past, planning a brief toilet stop, a coffee and boarding the 9.25 on time. Had I been deaf and ignoring screens, I'd have managed to have walked right in and done that. But no, Network fucking Rail or Northern told me one was off, get the other which has no room for you and then when you can't get it and you try to make the best of it, we're going to drag you around again. So I get to feel like shit without my coffee or any other drink on the train. Twats.

Coming back,they cancelled the one train in the afternoon I'd be on. I had to get the one before which went from platform to platform for no apparent reason but made sure that I had to cross a fucking bridge, turned up fifteen minutes later and was a wee three carriager when the platform looked like downtown fucking Tokyo for congestion. I ended up sat opposite a bloke who had a fish tank that was leaking. You know you can transport them empty, you fucking dickhead?

Twat of a day

Yesterday - drunks. To follow

This last week has been the start of the suicide timetable.

TPE, in their defence, had announced before that if you wanted to go from Liverpool to Newcastle before January 4, 2020, you were, and I quote, 'fucked in the main'.  They've arranged freerolls on LNER and Northern to get there up the east coast.  However, if you're getting TPE from Newton and aren't on the 7.41, you have the options before the 12.41 of the 10.41.  And that's it.  One train in 5 hours.  However, in balance for this, if there is no Scarborough train through cancellation, TPE would not run a service in two hours from Liverpool to Manchester Victoria.  And they never just cancel one of course...

I'd had two reroutes, one either way, where I'd been put on a Northern and I'd obviously been cunted out once or twice besides, but Thursday was different.  The later train was running and on time.  The Northern option was late, so I was going to be a half hour late but at least I'd be on my way home.

It was on time, and I got on, seat of four to myself and sorted myself out with drink, pills, snack and book.  Bloke gets on for the bank opposite and knocks me twice as he coughs and splutters as he tries to sit.  This should have warned me.  We get moving and our fucking hero over the way pulls out a can of Foster's and you know it isn't going into an empty chamber.  He pulls out his phone and goes into that Scouse whine that may be mimicked across the world but no-one hates more than another Scouser - the pissed twat.  "It's a fucking show, lad, there's no fucking idea what's going on, no mention of Lea Green, everything is being rerouted through Piccadilly and shit, it's a fucking show".  That same sentiment will be repeated for ten minutes using variations on the phraseology but with one thing in common - he didn't need to phone because like every pissed cunt ever, he could have just shouted his mate 30 miles away.

That couldn't worsen, could it?  Well on the bank in front of me is another bloke who picks up his phone and fucking hell, it's stereo.  The quality of both conversations is inversely proportional to the volume.  Fortunately, he fucks off at Newton after hanging up but our fucking hero steps up.  Every time an announcement comes over the Tannoy, he fucking argues with it.  There are people who should listen to that announcement, dickhead included, because (i) this scheduled service never goes near Piccadilly (ii) it will be stopping at Lea Green as well as Newton because of the disruptions in the evening timetable - TPE recognising the need.  He isn't happy enough with his output, though, so he barks like a seal, belches like a Chinese power station and every time we go through a station, he names the station and starts talking about 'fucking disgrace, every fucking night' stopping only to argue with the Tannoy and get through his second and third cans of Aussie piss.  Two Asian women at the back at the point of approaching Liverpool simply repeatedly burst out laughing at the fucking crank every time he belched or otherwise.

I don't have their patience.

You may be wondering at this point why he battered on about Lea Green when he didn't get off at Lea Green.  So did I, but fuck it, let the cunt get off, he's gone forever.  Got off last, went for a piss and walked up to the bus stop.  Well, he's only fucking there as well, pegging up and down the road but angling to get the same bus as I am.  FFS.  Not only that but a bloke and girlfriend are standing behind me and it went like this

Bloke starts
"I feel a bit sick, I'll go straight to bed when we get in"
"Yeah, I'm the same, I think I will too"
"Why do you have to gegg in all the time, you do this all the time, I can't be sick without you competing"
"I'm not..."
"I've been on my feet all day while you've been sat on your arse"
"So that's what you think of me, sat on my arse..."
ESCALATES
Four lines later our bloke says fuck it, I'm going home and leaves her to it

At least that's over.

Bus comes, I get on and deliberately take a space downstairs that will mean at least he has to go up.  He gets on, pays but doesn't take his ticket, driver says 'if an inspector gets on...' and he replies 'can't be arrrrsed' and goes upstairs to no longer be visible to me.  He gets off in the middle of the route and so about nine miles away from Lea Green and finally, I get some fucking peace.

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I wrote this last night while I was largely asleep - about 40/60, I'd say by the end of it, so if it tails off slightly, blame that fucking drunk cunt and call it a hangover

I'm going to find out later if I can claim two delay/repay charges for the one journey as TPE decided to double down with cancellations. I could have walked to Newton-le-Willows in the time it took me to get from my house to Manchester. The only part of my commute that went well (the bus sucked a fucking big dick as well) was the walk to the bus stop

NotBert wrote:(the bus sucked a fucking big dick as well)